


Like Everything That's Green

by Stratagem



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Fix-It, Fluffy Romance, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-08-31 02:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8559265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stratagem/pseuds/Stratagem
Summary: During the escape from Goblin Town, Fili and Kili are separated from the Company and gravely injured. They escape with their lives but just barely. They're found by a young herbalist and are healed in the comfort of a friendly home. But soon trouble and sorrow follow them to the doorstep, and the young dwarves must fulfill a vow as they travel toward Erebor and the Company.





	1. Chapter 1

Clover, elf's hair, chase-devil. Camy brushed an earth-and-plant stained hand through the woven basket sitting in her lap, separating out the various flowers, herbs and berries she had collected. The young hobbit girl was sitting under a redwood by the little stream that ran through her and Mim's vale, her green dress just as dirty as her fingers. It was late afternoon, fading fast into dusk, and she had been out of doors for most of the day, gathering the plants that she and Mim used to make their living as well as finding kindling for their fireplace.

Hmm, lavender, dandelion, elderberry, marigold. Even a few pickings of chamomile, her namesake. Her basket was nearly full of the plants Mim had asked for, but she wanted to find a few more things that she thought would be helpful. Particularly the ingredients for what might be a very fine, strong tea, if it turned out as she hoped.

She plucked a few marigold blooms from the basket and picked up her wide-brimmed hat from where she had set it by her side. The tip of her tongue slid into the corner of her mouth as she stuck the flowers in just the right spot in the broad blue ribbon that wrapped around the hat. Other flowers, dried and beautiful in a simple treasured memory way were already tucked into the ribbon. When she was satisfied with the aesthetic, she put the hat back on over her honey-colored curls and nearly disappeared under its wide, floppy brim.

"Might need a new hat soon, Bert, this one's near full."

Camy slipped the basket onto the crook of her arm as she stood up and walked over toward the old donkey. He didn't even lift his head from chewing grass. Pulling the cart always made him tired, the poor old thing, but it really wasn't that much firewood. She couldn't pick up any big pieces of tree or long branches, so she mainly was tasked with collecting kindling.

Lifting the donkey's head by his cheery yellow halter, embroidered with a pattern of thistles and hay, she led him on down the path. Peppermint would be perfect for the tea she wanted to make, and she knew the perfect patch where she could pick as much as she wanted.

If Mim believed in organizing plants, they might have had a garden with orderly rows for all of their herbs and flowers, but Mim didn't like gardens. She thought they stifled plant growth and ruined their, whatchamacallit, potency. That's why the plants were allowed to grow willy-nilly about the tiny valley without any tending except for clipping them back when they sprawled into the paths and Camy's favorite hiding spots. The air of the vale was thick with the smells of spices and herbs and all manner of growing things.

However, the patch of peppermint she wanted was outside of the Living Gate. That meant it would be beyond the protection spell that the wizard had put there years ago, when Mim was young and Camy wasn't even a whisper of a thought in the world. But there hadn't been goblins or orcs on the mountain for a couple weeks now, and it was still daylight. They didn't dare to show their ugly faces in the light. Still, Mim wouldn't like her going out there, especially alone, but Camy was nearly thirty and almost an adult now, at least in the eyes of hobbits. She could go out past the gate if she wanted to…

Besides, she wasn't alone. She had Bert.

Camy led Bert down the pebbled path to the Living Gate, humming a bumble bee song to herself. It was a warm afternoon, like summer was breathing its last before it let fall get a good, solid grip on the earth.

"I think honey would go nice in the tea," she told Bert, "Peppermint, honey and something more. Maybe cinnamon." He plodded along with her, not as enthused as she was about the components of her new creation judging by his lack of reaction.

They reached the border between the vale and the world in a few minutes, and both girl and donkey stopped. The Living Gate was invisible. It was a spell of protection that stretched between the two huge mountain pines that stood on either side of the small entrance into the vale. As long as those trees stood, the spell would stand as well.

The donkey was far more used to going beyond the vale since he went with Mim to sell their wares in the village of Arrowsway, about a week's journey, there and back. But for the girl, this would be the sixth time she had left the vale, never going farther than a few hundred feet from the entrance, and it would be the very first time that Mim wasn't with her.

"Well," she said, drawing herself up to her full height, which was over three feet but less than four, "It's not as if goblins are going to jump out of the bushes the moment I step outside…"

Bert chuffed and plodded forward as if agreeing with her. In actuality, he was probably just eager to get at the bright green clover on the other side of the gate. Camy moved along with him, her fingers threading through his halter again, more for comfort than control this time.

As they passed through the spell of the Living Gate, she held her breath. It wasn't really necessary, but she was always secretly a little nervous that the spell wouldn't let her back in again. But as long as she spoke the words Mim had taught her years ago, she knew the gate would allow her entrance and then close again, a guard against the dark mountains and the wide world, a few moments after she passed through. It let you out without words, but if you didn't know them, you would never get back in, even if you knew where the vale was.

When she was on the other side, she glanced back at the gate behind her and saw the illusion of the rock wall. If she went up and brushed her hand against it, she knew it'd feel just like scratchy granite, at least until she said the entrance spell.

Turning back toward the wide forest, she headed for where she knew the peppermint patch was, Bert walking with a perky gait beside her in the prospect of reaching the juicy clovers. Around them, the forest was a deep, late summer green, and the ground was blanketed with last autumn's crinkled offerings. Above her, the mountains threatened; Mim's vale was so close to the mountains, it always felt like they were looming over the tiny valley. In truth, the vale was more like a wide crevice in the mountainside, but Mim called it a vale, so Camy did too.

Her bare feet were silent on the fallen leaves and twigs as she walked, but she felt exposed outside of the protection of the vale. But…she didn't completely hate it. There was something in her that felt a thrill at the idea that she wasn't completely shielded, that she was stepping into the world, even if she was only going a little ways.

That excitement evaporated like water in a hot skillet when something rustled nearby. She snapped up, her back suddenly a piece of straight steel that demanded obedience. Her eyes were wide as she looked around, hoping it was just a rabbit or a badger. The goblins rarely came this far down the mountain, she reminded herself, and never in daylight. Never. So it had to be a badger. Yes.

Camy reached over and patted Bert's nose. "Just a critter," she said, "Nothing too bad." She started walking again, now looking around for restless badgers and rabbits. It was silly to be afraid of forest creatures, and that's all it could be.

There it was again, the rustling, and this time it was accompanied by a soft groan. Camy backed up against Bert, looking everywhere for an injured rabbit, even though she knew that noise wasn't a rabbit noise. Oh… Slowly, cautiously, she turned and peeked around Bert's broad grey neck.

At first, she didn't notice anything out of place, but just when she was about to blame everything on her own nervousness, she noticed a big boot sticking out from behind a large hardwood tree. She bit both of her lips and curled her fingers into Bert's short mane as she ducked back behind him, heart pounding.

There was someone in the forest. Were they coming after her, had they seen her, what about Bert? She peeped around Bert again. The boot moved a bit, more of a twitch than a deliberate movement. By the way the sole of the boot was pointed out, whoever it belong to had to be sitting against the tree. So they weren't after her, that was a relief. But were they friend or foe? Camy couldn't tell, she had never met either. The only person she had ever talked to in her life was Mim, and she was family…

Another stifled groan. It sounded like the person was in a lot of pain, maybe. Mim made noises like that when her arthritis was getting to her. Were they hurt? The healer in her, trained but largely untried, automatically woke up and decided it wanted to address the situation, but her practical side held her back. What if it was a boot-wearing goblin? Or some kind of orc that liked footwear?

The need to investigate won out, but she reached into the cart and pulled out her small hatchet that she used to chop up kindling. She had never used it for anything besides wood-chopping, and she doubted she could use it for anything besides that, but she didn't want to go unarmed. Moving with care, she moved around Bert, who huffed into her hat as she walked in front of him.

"Hello?" she said softly as she approached the boot. There was only silence for an answer. "Hello…boot-wearer?"

Even before she had rounded the tree, the smells hit her nose. Blood and fire, both heavy and forceful as they seeped into her nose. She shook her head and hurried forward, ducking around the tree. If it was possible, her brown eyes widened even more at the sight before her.

It was a dwarf. Or at least she thought it was, she wasn't sure; she'd never actually seen one before. And it was hard to make out exactly what he was when he was covered in blood and soot and wounds. There was an open gash on his face, right on his left cheek, and the blood had drenched his neck and the furry collar of his coat. His hair, disheveled and braided, was reddish-blond in-between the streaks of rusty blood, and his face, strong-featured with a sturdy nose, was dark with blood and smoke trails. Even with his face a mess, he looked young, though maybe a little older than herself... It was difficult to tell, but he didn't seem old. His eyes were closed, and his head was tilted back against the tree; it seemed like he had wedged himself in front of a hollow in the big tree but hadn't gone inside.

The smell of blood made her gag a little but worry moved her toward him. One of his legs looked awkwardly bent at the ankle, and his clothes were ripped, showing other wounds that she hadn't noticed completely at first. Patches of dark red blood soaked his clothes, and there was lots of it, maybe too much for it to only be his if he was still alive.

He was gripping two swords, one in each hand, though they were both lying on the ground at the moment. Another weapon, a small ax of some kind, was nearby, as if it was dropped when he didn't have enough strength left to carry it. It must have been the goblins that had gotten to him, the ones who called the mountains home.

The dwarf looked barbaric and wild but also hurt and in need of serious help. Camy pushed her floppy hat back quickly from her face so that it rested on her back, and she knelt down by the dwarf's side, putting her hatchet to the side. He seemed unconscious…maybe he was dead. Camy's thundering heart clenched. He looked too young to be dead, at least to her, and it wouldn't be right or fair if he was and to have died alone out here in the forest.

Hesitantly, she reached out toward him, to find a heartbeat where his collar brushed his neck. The instant her fingers touched him, he jerked awake and his hand dropped the sword it had been holding and darted up to snatch her fingers. She yelped as he squeezed hard and yanked her to the side, away from himself. His eyes were incredibly blue and very disoriented, and he narrowed them as he lifted the other sword to her throat. He coughed, a harsh sound, and then spoke, his deep voice rough with smoke.

"Who are you?"


	2. Chapter 2

Camy winced, although she supposed that freezing in place would have been a more appropriate response. If she could have done both at the same time, that might have been an action that would appropriately express how she felt about the situation she had found herself in. The sword was bobbing in the dwarf's hand, and it was far too close to her throat for any kind of civilized conversation. She opened her mouth but no words came out. They seemed to have flown off, and if she could have followed them, she would have.

The dwarf narrowed his eyes, and the trembling sharp edge of the sword licked her throat. A trickle of warmth slid down her neck and along her collarbone. "Who are you?" he repeated.

"Chamomile," she answered him in a rush, "That's my name. Like the flower, spelled the same, but Mim calls me Camy, which isn't a flower at all, it…it's just a name..." Her voice had wound itself up high and tight and then trailed off. She looked down and then glanced back at him.

He was staring at her as if he was actually seeing her now. His face twisted in confusion, which probably hurt a lot seeing how it he had that nasty gash on his cheek.

When he let go of her hand, she pulled it back to herself and then threaded her fingers together. "I'm sorry, that was too much. It's just that you've got a sword at my throat and you're the first person I've met besides Mim and I don't even remember meeting her and…" Oh, this wasn't going well at all. It certainly wasn't how she wanted to meet her first stranger; she had always imagined that to be a merry event where everyone was pleasant and charming but now it seemed that it would be a memory marred with blood and babbling. Camy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Can you put the sword down, please?"

"You—you're a hobbit."

She opened one eye a bit. The dwarf had lowered the sword and rested it across his legs but he hadn't let go of the handle part yet. His eyes were suspicious, pained and more than a little puzzled. Camy looked at him fully, nodding slowly.

"And you're a dwarf," she said, "Also, you're very hurt." Her hand lifted a bit, on its way to his wounds, but she immediately turned it into a fist and thrust it into the folds of her skirt. "Was it the goblins?"

"Yes…" A grimace passed over his face then a flash of terror that made her gasp with how suddenly he wore it. "Kili!" He whipped his head to look over his shoulder at the wide, gaping hole in the tree that he had been sitting in front of. With some effort, he shifted so he could look at the hole, and Camy scrambled back, away from him and all of his sharp edged things, but she didn't go far. If she left him here, the goblins would be here as soon as night fell to get him. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She had only seen goblins from the safety of the vale, and she had no delusions of being able to fend them off if they caught her or this dwarf out here in the open.

Moving around seemed to have taken too much out of the dwarf. He took a few shuttering breaths, one hand on his side, before he slumped against the tree. His blue eyes glanced at her for a second before they fluttered shut, and she was certain she had seen pleading there.

Camy stood up and looked around, half expecting a goblin horde to come tearing at her through the forest. She spun in a circle, but the only thing she saw was a jack rabbit run into the bushes. Quietly, she walked over to the dwarf, clasping her shaking hands together. When she knelt by him this time, he didn't move to snatch her hand or accost her with a sword. He stayed still, breathing shallowly. Broken ribs, possibly, poor fellow. Sighing, she looked into hole in the tree, wondering what the dwarf had been doing, talking to the hole.

"Oh, dear." She sat straight down on the forest floor, feeling a little faint herself. A second dwarf was tucked into the hollow of the tree, looking about as well off as the first one. Although he dark as the other was fair, with long, tangled hair the color of rich earth and dark scruff on his face and neck, there was something similar in their appearances. Maybe they were brothers? It was hard to tell…

She put her hand to her mouth as she looked back at the first dwarf. The way he had placed himself in front of the opening in the tree, how he had had his swords ready at hand—she would have never seen this second dwarf or even known he was there unless the first one moved. And if the goblins had come for them, the first would have died before this dark-haired one…

Well, no one was going to die here, not if she could help it. Camy looked up toward the mountain, noting the growing shadows and the sinking sun. She would have to move fast, though she wasn't sure how she was going to get two injured and undoubtedly heavy dwarves back to the vale on her own.

And yet, she wasn't alone.

"Bert!" Darting to her feet, Camy tore back over to the old donkey, nearly tripping over a branch the same way her brain was stumbling over the plan that she was forming. She leapt into the cart and flung out all of the twigs and tree bits she had gathered; she would need all the room in the cart for its new, non-botanical occupants. When she was finished, she jumped out again. "Time to make yourself useful, come on!"

Pulling the donkey and cart over to the tree, she let go of the halter and hurried over to the first dwarf. She tilted her head to the side and bit her lips, considering how to go about this. "All right, now…" She bent down, slipped his arms beneath his and stood up. Or at least tried to. He might have moved a few inches when she hauled backward, but she wasn't sure. Dwarves must be made of the metals they worked with, as heavy as this one was.

Panic whispered at her edges. If she didn't work quick, they were all going to be goblin fodder. This had to work, she had to make it work. Why did they have to weigh so much? Her eyes darted over the dwarf with golden hair, and she tried to focus. Oh…oh! Armor, they were wearing armor!

She threw herself into the task of snatching all that armor off of the dwarves, first one, then the other. Arm pieces, leg pieces, bits of mail, all confusing and jumbled; she unlocked, unhinged and undid it all and threw the pieces into the box in the front of the cart. When she was finished, she tugged the golden-haired dwarf inch by hard-won inch to the cart. She had to tip the cart back, climb in and then pull him the rest of the way into the cart. Getting the second dwarf into the cart was a much more difficult affair; she had to weasel him out of the hole in the tree then get him into the cart, which almost upset the whole thing until she tied the first dwarf into the cart with a bit of rope. Not to mention she was quite terrified that she would either hurt him more or that he would try to attack her. On a whim, she scurried about and grabbed up the weapons that had been by their sides, guessing that if they lived through their wounds, they might want them back.

When she was finished, she flopped against the side of the cart, resting as she looked at the darkening sky. She felt like lying down on the ground and sleeping, but the woods were growing dim and they had to move on. Also, neither of the dwarves had woken up the whole time she had been moving them, and that worried her almost more than their impeding nighttime death by the hands of goblins. Exhausted, she clucked to Bert and headed back toward the vale, the wagon creaking in protest against its heavy burden.

Shadows were pooling around the gate as she approached, and when she looked back over her shoulder at the mountains, she could almost swear that she saw tiny dark shapes creeping through the trees. Her heart pounded so hard that it ached against her ribs, and she whipped back around to the gates to quietly say the words.

_Sorrow and anger bind thee,_

_The past no more shall be,_

_In solitude lives the iron lady,_

_Open again, whispers me._

The instant the last word passed her lips, she darted through the gate, Bert quick on her heels. Camy was instantly more at ease but fear for the health of the dwarves drove her on now. The wheels of the wagon clattered on the rocks embedded in the path that headed straight for the tiny cabin she and Mim shared in the center of the vale.

"Mim!" Camy cried as they approached, "Mim!"

A moment later, the door swung open, and Mim stepped onto the porch, rubbing her hands on her stained, once-white apron. The human woman was tall, and her old age hadn't yet stooped her; on the porch of the small home, she still towered over Camy at the age of sixty-nine, which was apparently old for humans. Her dark-grey hair, streaked with wide swatches of white, was tied back in a severe braid, and her wrinkled-lined face became even sterner as she looked down at Camy.

"Are you hurt, child?" Mim demanded, coming down off the porch, looking her up and down for any harm. "Why are you yelling?"

Camy rushed forward and took Mim's hand. Mim would know what to do, how to help, she was a true healer, Camy was just in training. She tugged the old woman over to the cart, nearly bouncing on her toes with urgency. "Oh, Mim, please, you have to help them! They're hurt, and I don't know what to do—"

"Dwarves," Mim said as she looked into the cart for a long moment then glanced down at Camy. "Young ones. And where did you come by a pair of half-dead dwarves?"

"In the woods," she answered, knowing now was not the time for subterfuge. Before Mim could lecture her on the dangers of going beyond the vale, Camy interrupted any chances of it. "Are they truly half-dead? Can you heal them? I'll help, I swear, please just try?"

"Oh, dwarves are as hearty as beef stew and as durable as the mountains they dwell in. You can find one beaten within an inch of its life, and it still just wants a mug of mead and a hunk of ham." Mim said, waving away Camy's concern, though there was a slight frown about her brow that Camy knew meant she wasn't as sure as she sounded. "They're bad off but not unsalvageable. They'll make it through the night, I think, but we'll need to ward off infection." She crossed her arms and looked toward the mountains then down at Camy. "And the goblins will be down from the hills tonight, if this is their work."

"The gate will hold," Camy replied. It was a saying between the two of them, something Mim had said to her when she was just a wee little thing and afraid every time a goblin came near the edge of the vale.

"The gate will hold," Mim repeated, and she glared down at the two dwarves. "And these two may yet live to eat us out of house and home. Now, lass, let's get them inside. It'll be a long night ahead of us."


	3. Chapter 3

It was the smell of herbs that woke Fili. The strong scent made him crack open his eyes even though they felt thick and heavy. Every part of him seemed to ache, but what had happened to him was a haze in his mind. A cool cloth touched his forehead face gently, and he squinted, vision blurry, expecting to see his mother there ready to berate him for another misadventure.

Instead, there was a heart-shaped face framed with curls that gleamed like dark golden rings in firelight. No, that wasn't right, his mother had a long face with straight black hair. He blinked, confused, and for a moment, the girl came into focus. A tiny snub of a nose, light brown freckles smattered across her cheeks, big brown eyes watching him. She blinked, looking startled, and then gave him a tentative smile.

"It's all right, you're safe. So's your brother." Her voice was warm and soothing with a lilt to it. "Sleep on, it'll do you good."

He wanted to say no, to ask where Kili was, to make her tell him what happened. But his eyes were heavy, and resting them sounded nice…

He slipped back into sleep and then further into memory.

* * *

Fili would never forget those yells and screams and the sound of ropes snapping and Kili crying out in terror, not until his dying day, which may not be that far off. They echoed in his head, a steady cacophony of pain and fear scratching its way from ear to ear as he dragged Kili through the deep tunnels of the mountain. He had carried his brother on his shoulders as long as he could, but now his strength was failing him so he had hooked his arms under his brother's, catching the crooks of his elbows against Kili's arms, and was pulling him along.

He stopped at the point where the tunnel he was traveling along intersected with another. He was hopelessly lost in these dark passageways. If the situation was lighter, he might have laughed at the irony of it all. A dwarf, born to the underneath of the world, lost in a cavern system. As it was, he was in no condition to laugh. He was bleeding from a dozen goblin-inflicted wounds and his face and shoulder were still bleeding from the straps of the tailed whip that goblin bastard had wielded. Kili's blood was heating his hands as he dragged his younger brother with him, away from the goblins who were almost certainly already on their trail by now.

His vision blurred, and Fili stumbled, his shoulder scraping against the stone wall. He managed to not drop Kili by letting the rest of his own body hit the wall and pulling Kili close, wrapping his arms tight around him.

Exhausted, he pressed his forehead to Kili's shoulder blade, close enough that he could hear Kili's ragged breathing. Good. Breathing was good. Because if Kili stopped breathing, he wasn't sure he would be able to go on. But a moment's rest…they could afford that. Fili needed one.

It had happened so suddenly. One moment, they had been following their uncle and Gandalf and the rest of the Company as they hacked and slashed their way out of Goblin Town. Then the bridge-path they had been on had violently listed to the side; goblins where cutting through the ropes and chopping through the beams that held the section they were on to the wall and now it was starting to pull away from the rest of the path ahead of and behind it.

Fili started to sprint but stopped when he heard Kili yell out behind him. Instantly, he spun around and blocked a sword that was aimed at his brother who must have fallen when the path lurched. A roar ripped through him as he stepped over Kili, thrust both his swords into the goblin's gut and twisted. The beast fell dead as its black innards spilled on the rough-hewn planks of the bridge.

Bending down, Fili sheathed one sword and reached to grab his brother. He nearly fell on top of Kili as the bridge broke from the wall, throwing him off balance. He felt Kili's fingers dig into his arm even as he pulled his younger brother to him. There was no way to get to the others, the distance was too far; they wouldn't make it.

He saw Thorin turn around, Orcrist raised high to take down any foes who came against him. There was victory in his eyes but Fili saw it fade into shock, and he lowered the elven blade as he started to run toward them, shouting their names. It was Dwalin who caught him, snagging him around the waist and hauling him back before he could leap off the edge and join them. For a second, Fili wished Dwalin hadn't done that since there was some small part of him that thought Thorin could get them out of any danger, even this, but in truth he was grateful. At least Thorin would not share their fate. He only wished that he had the strength to throw Kili to safety.

Free from the wall, the bridge had slipped down the side of the cliff into the depths of the mountain, picking up speed. Both of them yelled in fear until the bridge slammed into a ledge and the breath was knocked from their lungs. For a moment, they paused, then the fall continued. Around them, the bridge began to break and fall apart. At one point, Fili nearly killed himself with his own blade that he kept in his hand, but he refused to let it go. He forced himself to look up and ahead into the darkness. There was a second ledge, and it seemed like this might be the last before they truly hit the abyss.

They only had a second to act. Shifting, he placed his feet on what remained of the bridge and tugged at Kili. "Jump!" he yelled and then, whether Kili had jumped or not, he tossed him over the ropes onto the slope. A moment later, Fili leaped over the ropes and tumbled down the slope a ways until he slowed himself to stop by clawing at the stones and rocks around him.

He lifted his head to the sound of relieved laughter. "We're alive!" Pebbles rolled and pelted him in the face as Kili slid down to him and grabbed him by one shoulder, his other hand still clutching his sword. "Fili, we're alive! Good! Not dead, how're we not dead?!" His dirty face was positively gleeful. "Are you hurt? We're alive! Come on, let's go." He snagged Fili's arm and pulled him up to his feet.

Fili stared at him, his own head spinning, though he managed to smile. "Just bumps and bruises," he finally answered. Plus a couple cuts from orc blades, but that wasn't important now. What they needed to do was get out of here and rejoin the rest of the company.

That was when the goblins swarmed them.

They came from a tunnel that they hadn't noticed in the side of the slope, and they poured out of the opening like ants from a hill. Fili was exhausted, but he threw himself into the fight, determined to get himself and Kili out of this damn mountain.

He lost track of how many goblins they killed as he and his brother slashed and hacked their way into the tunnel and hopefully toward a way out. At some point, Kili had grabbed one of the torches from the wall and managed to set a couple of the goblins on fire; their scanty clothes were apparently very flammable, as were the wooden beams that they used to support their tunnels.

Soon the world was made of fire and blood, battle and pain. A sword lashed at his side, a spear bite his leg, a knife gouged into his shoulder. When a whip licked at him hungrily and hot blood poured down his face, he backed himself against a wall. Fear clenched his gut, but determination, rage and courage rose to conquer it, and they drove him on. He was of the line of Durin, the descendant of kings, and he would not fall, not in this wretched place.

Neither would his brother.

Kili was starting to fail, Fili could see it in his slowing movements and the pain twisting face. He was holding his arm to his chest as he fought one-handed, his swings sloppy and frenzied. His clothes were dark with blood, and Fili didn't know how many wounds he had been given. Their chance for escape came unexpectedly when Fili saw a wide crack in the wall. It was just big enough for a dwarf to fit through…

"Kili!" was the only warning Fili gave his brother before shoving him through the crack. Once they were on the other side, Fili broke into a sprint, pulling Kili along with him. By some stroke of good luck, the first goblin that tried to come through was too big to fit through the crack and the press of other goblins against him stopped any from coming any farther. At least for the moment.

When they took a break from running, Kili had sat down on the floor and nearly scared Fili to death by fainting. That was when Fili had started carrying him, stubborn in his intention to get his brother out of the goblin's mountain alive.

"Let's go, brother," he said, hefting Kili up again, slinging one of his brother's arms over his shoulders, "I think…think there's a light ahead."

From there, his mind had trouble stringing together what had happened. There was the mountain and the faltering, staggering trip down the hillside, Kili might've woken up at some point, he wasn't sure. His ankle…he'd twisted it on the way down. Then there was the forest with the tree that had the wide hole where he made Kili hide when they couldn't go any farther. He didn't have the strength, and that's when the world faded...

* * *

The next time Fili woke, he was alone, and he didn't feel like he had been sat on by a cave troll then gnawed on by a warg anymore. Maybe trampled by an orc horde, but that was still better than before. He sat up in bed. Or he made a good attempt at it. Someone had swaddled him in blankets and then piled more on top of him as if it was the middle of winter instead of the end of summer. Slowly, mindful of his still aching limbs, he extracted himself from the mound of blankets and then narrowed his eyes at his right ankle. Someone had bound it up tight…he must've sprained it.

Then there was the fact that half his clothes were missing. He touched the bandages that were wrapped around his chest and shoulder. Where was his armor? And his shirt. He would like to have his shirt back. And his vest.

And where in Durin's name was Kili?

Groaning, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked around the room. It was small, and the wooden walls were covered with pressed flowers and pieces of bright patchwork quilts. A second bed, more of a cot really, was opposite of his and the blankets on it were rumpled and messy, like someone had just gotten up. From the ceiling, bouquets of plants hung down, tied up there with ribbons. It smelled nice. Must be a girl's room. Why was he in a girl's room…

Fili gingerly put weight on his injured ankle and immediately wished he didn't. Cursing, he tensed up and pressed his hands to his face, forcing himself to breathe even though that made a sharp pain go through his chest. Did everything have to hurt?

"Again, I'll remind the two of you that we do have a proper table for sitting and eating at."

He lifted his head from his hands, his eyes narrowing. That muffled voice was unfamiliar, dry and wintery and female, an old woman's voice. Was he being kept captive in the den of a crone or some ancient witch? But last he checked, witches weren't inclined to patching up their victims before they ate them.

"Aye, and it's a fine proper table, but I'll remind you again, I'll eat in there with Fili 'til he can sit at the table, too."

Fili sat up straighter. Kili was here, too, and he didn't sound like he was in an awful lot of pain or fighting with an enemy, though he did sound peevish, haughty and stubborn. That was the tone he often used when someone was trying to make him do something he didn't want to do.

There was a muffled frustrated noise and the sound of metal clinking together. "I'm sure your brother wants to wake to the sweet sounds of you slurping soup by his ear."

A girl broke into the conversation, and for some reason, it was almost like he knew her voice. But no, he didn't know anyone here besides Kili. Did he? "We promise we won't spill anything, Mim, and we _are_ taking broth for Fili, too…"

"Fine. Here, you forgot the spoons. Now go eat on the beds like barbarians."

Kili spoke again, and this time Fili could tell he was grinning even though he couldn't see him. "Harder to be barbarians now that you gave us spoons."

"Ach, get on with you, you rude thing!"

Ignoring the pain, Fili forced himself up and out of bed. He had to get to Kili, to make sure he was all right and that the angry old woman wasn't a witch. Gritting his teeth, he hopped on one foot toward the door, unwilling to try the experiment of putting weight on his foot again.

He was almost to the door when it swung in, nearly hitting him in the face as Kili came through. Fili stepped backward, right onto his bad ankle, and fell back as Kili let out a shout and tossed the bowl he had been carrying into the air as he tried to grab Fili instead. There was a bit of a scream in there, too, and that certainly didn't belong to his brother. Fili ended up on the floor, half-covered with soup, while Kili sat and stared at him.

A moment later, Fili was being squashed against his brother as Kili hugged him too tight with one arm. But he wasn't going to make a sound or complain about the pain, not when Kili obviously needed the hug. Maybe he needed it too. Kili took a shuddering breath. "I thought you were…"

"Not this time," Fili said as he reached up and patted Kili's back. When Kili leaned away and sniffed a bit, Fili shoved him in the shoulder. "Don't blubber. Takes more to kill me than a town full of goblins, you know that."

"I'm not blubbering!" Kili said even as he ran the back of his wrist under his nose. He rolled his eyes. "And it was more like a whole mountain full. You're not that good at fighting yet."

"Good enough. We're alive, aren't we?"

"Yeah, but you've been unconscious for three days," Kili said with a frown.

Three days? Truly, it didn't seem that long… "I'm fine now." Fili looked Kili up and down, noting the scratches under one of his eyes and the splint on his left arm. He was certainly worse for wear and he wouldn't be shooting his bow any time soon, but he didn't look like he was about to keel over either.

There was movement by the door, and Fili looked up to see a girl there. She was in the doorway with a cloth in her hand, looking a little shy and uncertain. A tiny thing, she was, just a slip of a girl, and a hobbit, judging by the size of her versus the size of her feet. They were easily as big as his own, and the rest of her was far smaller than him.

Stepping inside, she offered him the cloth, her curly hair falling in her face. "I don't mean to intrude, but I thought you might want to wipe the soup off before it dries…"

"Thanks," he replied as he took the cloth and swiped at the soup. There was something about her that he was supposed to know. He just couldn't figure out what it was. Her cheeks colored a light shade of pink, and as he remembered that someone had stolen his shirt, a bit of heat rose to his own face. Beside him, Kili flung a hand out toward the hobbit girl and grinned.

"Fili, I'd like you to meet our brave and selfless rescuer—"

The girl turned crimson. "Oh, Kili, don't, no, I wasn't—"

The forest. There had been a girl in the forest, kneeling by him, his sword at her pale throat. She had a lilting, sweet voice, a warm voice, and with a flower name but also… "Camy." Both his brother and the girl whipped their heads toward him, their eyes wide. Fili gave the girl, Camy, a small smile. "Which isn't a flower at all."

"No, it isn't," she said. A tiny grin darted onto her face. "You remembered."

"Excuse me, I wasn't finished with my grand introduction," Kili said indignantly. He took the cloth from Fili and cleaned up the soup on the floor roughly as he mock-scowled at them. "You can't know each other until I introduce you proper-like."

"Too bad, we've already met," Fili said, smirking over at his brother. He looked down at his hands and then back up at the girl. "And I'm sorry I threatened you with a sword. I wasn't thinking clearly."

Kili's mouth dropped open. "You threatened her with a sword?! What? When?"

"No harm done," she chirped, but he could see the little red line on her neck that was a reminder of the encounter as she stood up. She reached over and patted Kili's arm. "You wouldn't remember, you were stuffed in a tree."

Now Kili had his head cocked slightly to the side and there was a fierce frown growing on his face. "What…I don't remember being in a tree...I wasn't in a tree!"

Fili grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it right now. It's not important."

Someone cleared their throat, and Fili looked up to see an elderly human woman in the doorway. Instantly he felt suspicious. Mankind wasn't always understanding of dwarves, and more than once he had been accused as a thief and a vagabond in human towns when he had done nothing to make them feel so hateful toward him. Seeing this woman did not put him at ease.

"What's important is that you get back in that bed and rest more," she said, her tone no-nonsense, "Goes for you too, boy." Her gaze had fallen on Kili.

He made a face back at her. "I'm older than you."

She didn't seem to take any notice of the comment or Kili's petulant expression. "Not even half-healed yet, neither of you, and rolling about on the floor and throwing your food around isn't going to help any. Back to bed." With a parting glare, she left the doorway. Fili's eyebrows came together. What an odd woman.

"You heard the lady's kind words," Kili said with a sarcastic smirk as he stretched his uninjured arm out to his brother. Fili took it and let Kili help him to his feet while Camy came to his other side, taking his elbow with a gentle but firm grip. At first, he wanted to wave her off, to not show weakness in front of her, but then he realized that he truly was tired again and his sore bruises were protesting loudly all this moving about. Bed would be nice, though the old woman could've been nicer about suggesting it.

"That would be the silver-tongued Mim," Kili said, seeming to guess his thoughts. Like he usually did. "This is her and Camy's house, they're healers."

"I'm just in training," Camy stated, "And don't mind Mim's sharpness. She does care…"

"Aye, I can tell by the way she squints at me like I'm going to run off with her favorite set of tonics."

"Kili!"

Amused, Fili shook his head as he hobbled back to his bed with their help. He winced as he crashed into the pile of blankets, his ankle telling him that maybe that Mim woman had a point about staying in bed. But he had so many questions… Where were they? Why had they been taken in by a hobbit and an old woman, and why was a hobbit lass living with an elderly human woman? How were they going to get back to Thorin…they had to find Thorin…

He fell back to sleep to the sounds of his brother arguing playfully with the hobbit lass, their voices keeping him company and pushing the nightmarish memories away.


	4. Chapter 4

Yawning, Camy rubbed the grit of sleep from her eyes as she got up from her makeshift pallet by the fire. After stretching, she pulled the dark blue overdress she had worn yesterday over her chemise and shuffle into the kitchen. The cottage only had three rooms; the main room where the den and the kitchen were, her bedroom and Mim's room, which also served as the woman's workroom. However, her work was actually spread all over the cottage, and herbs hung on walls and the ceiling through the little wooden home.

Last night had been the first real full night's sleep she had gotten since she had brought the dwarves to the cottage, what with needing to sit up with them and change bandages and fight fevers and mix new herbs and whatnot. Now that they both seemed to be on the mend, Mim had ordered her to bed as soon as dusk had fallen. Still, she felt like she could've slept 'til the afternoon and enjoyed a dozen more dreams, but years of being an early riser kept her from staying in bed half the day.

There was a kettle on the cast iron stove, and a hobbit-size teacup set out beside it. Pausing by the kitchen table, she could hear the muffled creak of Mim's rocking chair moving against the old boards of the front porch. Mim had probably already been up since before the sun rose; Camy couldn't remember a time when she had woken up in the morning before Mim.

Skirting around the table, she went over and opened the door to her own bedroom as quietly as she could. The little room had been forfeited when she had brought the dwarves into the home since they were Camy's responsibility, as Mim said. Oh, well, the little pallet she had made for herself by the fireplace wasn't so bad.

Both Fili and Kili were lumps beneath the quilts and covers, and the steady, loud, even snores told her that both of them were still peacefully asleep. She tilted her head a bit and wrinkled her nose. Truly, how did they make so much noise when they were merely sleeping?

Satisfied that they were both fine for the moment and unwilling to bother them, she closed the door and went to make herself a cup of tea. Sugar, mint extract, honey… Camy looked forlornly at the bottom of their honey pot when she lifted the lid. They seemed to out, which made sense, she supposed.

The first night and most of the first full day that they had had the dwarves at the home, they had both been unconscious, and Mim had made mixtures to dribble into their mouths that had been made of honey, water, feverfew and blueberry juice. Most of the honey had been used for those concoctions. The evening of the first day, Kili had woken up and been absolutely ravenous. Mim, however, would only let him have a few things, telling him quite plainly that he wasn't to eat himself sick. Honey had been the one sweet thing he had been allowed, and he reveled in that small luxury and seemed very determined to abuse the treat each day after.

Yesterday morning, Mim had come close to boxing his ears when she found him with his one good hand stuck tight in the little pot; she had settled for instead giving him a lecture on the negative qualities of having an overactive sweet tooth before she let Camy help him get the jar off.

Resigning herself to surviving without honey, Camy took her tea and slipped out the front door, taking a deep breath of the wet, cool air. Birdsong resounded through the trees, and the morning sun casted a pale glow over the untamed herbs and flowers of the vale. Dew glinted merrily on the overgrown grass in the yard. By his thatch lean-to, Bert was idly munching at a bale of hay, looking overly content and lazy.

"I trust you slept well, little one."

Camy smiled as she walked over to Mim's rocking chair. "Yes, ma'am," she said. She bit her lip. "You didn't need me during the night, did you? You should've woke me…"

"Trust me, I would have woken you if there had been any trouble with your dwarves," Mim said, shaking her head, "They're your problem, not mine." She lifted her cup to her lips and took a sip before glancing over the edge at Camy. "But now that they're on the mend, I doubt we'll have many troubles with them, at least in the sense of healing."

"Are dwarves really that hardy?" Camy asked. It was hard for her to believe that Fili and Kili, both of whom had seemed to be meeting with death when she found them, could return to health so quickly.

"I told you, they're as tough as granite and heal faster than the other races of the world. Did you not believe me?" Mim reached over and tugged at one of Camy's curls, wearing a small, sad smile. "Sometimes I forget how little you know." She set the teacup on her knee and held in between her wrinkled palms. "I should have done a better job of teaching you."

"I do know a lot though, so don't be hard on yourself!"Camy declared, reaching out to put her hand over one of Mim's. "I've read lots of books, and you're taught me so much."

"You know book learning and herb lore, child," Mim said, "You know the ground and the plants that grow from it and what they're for. Your world has always been a gentle place." She looked at the door to their cottage. The lines in her face deepened as she frowned, making her look older than her years. "Was it wrong that I only wanted happiness for you…"

"I am happy, really, I am," Camy said, patting Mim's hand. "Are you all right?"

The old woman turned back toward her with her normal wry smile back in place. "Yes, I'm fine." She pulled her hand out from under Camy's and motioned to her tea cup. "Drink that before it gets cold."

"Yes, ma'am," Camy said, though she wasn't entirely convinced that Mim seemed to be over her momentary displeasure. But she obediently sat down on the first step of the porch stairs and sipped at her tea. It just wasn't the same without her usual dollop of honey. "Do you mind if I visit the bees today, Mim? We're out of honey."

"I noticed," Mim said with another dark glance toward the door, "You can go in a day or so. Being without it in easy reach will teach the imp to keep his paw out of the pot." She sipped at her tea and glanced up at the mountaintops. "Eru help his poor mother. I can only imagine the terror he'll be when he gets the use of both hands, and now with the hairy one awake..." Mim grimaced. "Nothing edible in our house will be safe. You watch, if we're not careful and forget to provide enough food, they might start gnawing the leather."

Camy covered a giggle with her free hand. Mim's tone was just so long-suffering, it made her laugh. "That's hardly fair. They're dwarves, not puppies."

"I'm only mentioning it so that you'll know what happened if we find bite marks on the furniture."

Camy couldn't keep in her laughter. "Mim!"

For a while, they sat in companionable silence on the porch, finishing their morning tea and watching the vale awaken around them. A rabbit sat nibbling fresh green shoots of grass underneath an azalea bush, and there was more than a little chittering back and forth from the pair of squirrels who lived in the tall pine right beside the cottage. Noisy, cute buggers.

The door creaked open behind then, and Camy looked back over her shoulder and smiled. Kili, or "the imp" as Mim often referred to him, was standing in the doorway, yawning. This was the fourth day the dwarves had been there, not including the day she had found them in the forest, and she was ferociously curious about the two of them. Kili hadn't been very forthcoming with details about why he and his brother had been found half-dead in the forest; he had just said they were trying to visit their relatives in the east with a company of their kin and had gotten separated after they were captured by goblins.

"Mornin'!" Kili said, sounding chipper though he was rubbing his face as if to rid it of sleep. "There isn't any more tea left, is there? Maybe some sausages? Or ham?" His eyes lit up. "Bacon?"

"How about a whole hog?" Mim said dryly.

Kili's smile was brimming with wickedness. "Aye, we'll take that too if you've got it."

Mim looked over at Camy with an I-told-you-so expression, but Camy didn't think they were going to need to protect the furniture anytime soon. Of course Kili was hungry, most people were in the morning, and he was recovering from injuries. If anything she had read in her books and learned from Mim was true, hurt people who were getting better were hungry people. "I think there's some tea left in the kettle on the stove, and I'll make some breakfast."

"And you can help, dwarfling," Mim said as she stood up. As she walked toward the cottage, she stopped by the door and looked down at Kili. "If you're healthy enough to get around as well as you do, then you can help cook."

"Fine by me," he said with a smirk, "But I won't be held accountable for any mistakes in the kitchen. I'm an amateur cook. And I've got this bum arm." He waved his sling-encased arm around haphazardly and then gave the appendage a fierce glare, like it was its own fault for breaking. It wasn't too bad of a break; Mim had called it a fracture and said he would recover from it quickly enough if he let it rest. Unfortunately, Kili didn't seem like the resting type.

"Amateur cook? That would involve actually trying to cook something previously." Mim scoffed as she brushed past the dwarf and headed inside, probably to start work with the herbs. "I doubt you've ever cooked anything in your life."

Kili tossed a glare after her. "Lies! I've roasted many a rabbit, thank you."

Camy shook her head, not really understanding why Mim liked to tease and taunt Kili so much. She expected that it was actually Mim's way of keeping the dwarf at a distance; Mim didn't like anyone being too close, she knew that well enough.

"We don't have any rabbits to roast right now," Camy said as they followed Mim inside. "But I'm sure you can help fix biscuits." Somehow, even though he was shorter than Mim himself, he still made Camy feel small when she stood beside him. She was a few inches shorter than his shoulder, but he had said he was tall for a dwarf.

"I wouldn't trust him with biscuits," said a slightly deeper voice said. She looked over to find the blond dwarf, Fili, sitting with his elbows on the small kitchen table, watching them. Today, he had his washed and mended hooded tunic on and it looked like he had rebraided his hair; he looked far better than the day before, when he had been stumbling around the bedroom and getting drenched with soup. A grin tugged the corner of his mouth up on the side that didn't have the whip wound. "Might better give him something easier. Like boiling water."

"I can make biscuits!" Kili declared, tossing a determined grin at his brother, "I'll make gobs of biscuits, and I won't burn a single one." He walked over and flung open one of the cabinets as if the ingredients for making biscuits would just jump into his arms. Camy shook her head. Dwarves were odd folk.

Fili snorted. "That'd be a miracle, little brother."

"Three words. Taller. Than. You."

"One word. Beard."

"Good morning!" Camy said brightly to Fili, cutting off what might've been a brewing bickering match as she grabbed her stepstool to check the cabinets. "Do you want to help with breakfast, too?"

He quirked an eyebrow and glanced around the kitchen before looking back at her. "I can try. What do you want me to make?"

"Well…" Hmm, it couldn't be anything that he had to do standing up. He had his injured ankle, and he needed to keep his weight off it, or so Mim said, and he didn't have a crutch. Speaking of which… Camy stopped digging through the cabinet. "Actually, can you whittle?"

Fili and Kili glanced at each other before Fili nodded. "Aye…what would you want me to whittle? Bowls?"

Camy shook her head, grinning even as her cheeks heated up. "Oh, no, no, we have bowls enough, I believe." She pulled the pepper and salt shakers down from the cabinet and set them on the polished wood countertop. "But I was thinking you might want to get around at some point, and you don't need to be stomping about with your ankle the way it is. So if you could whittle your own crutch—"

Kili pushed away from the cupboard. "I'll do it! And I'll get the wood!" He bolted out the front door, letting it bang shut behind him.

Camy glanced back over her shoulder at Fili, who looked was smirking and shaking his head. "Is he always like that?"

"Worse. He has the attention span of a squirrel in acorn season." The dwarf picked up a table mat that was lying on the table and played with one corner of it. "I'd hoped I might get a crutch…Kili told me my ankle was sprained." He glanced over at the door that his brother had recently run through. "He said we were both bad off, but he wouldn't give me any details." There was something expectant about the way he was looking at her that made her think that her feel like he expected her to fill in those details. Unfortunately.

Camy's hands stilled for a moment around the piece of pottery she was grabbing and then she pulled it out of the cabinet. Turning around, she lowered herself to the counter and sat down, the bowl in her lap. "It wasn't…He was really very worried about you, you know, he barely left your side. Maybe he just doesn't want to talk about it."

"He should be able to talk to me about anything." He lifted his head and gave a humorless half-smile. "Especially when it's about me."

"You were both badly hurt," Camy said, shaking her head. She ran her finger around the cool edge of the bowl and sighed. "Kili's arm is fractured, and he did have a concussion, but it's better now. He lost a lot of blood during that fight you were in. And you were—" Slowly, she looked up to find him watching her, his face pale and drawn. Camy bit her lip and tightened her grip on the sides of the bowl. "Do you really want to hear this?"

"Yes…please."

Camy sucked in a breath through her teeth. "Your ribs are bruised, your ankle is sprained horribly, and you were whipped at some point, or that's what Mim says. And you both had more bruises than anyone is entitled to, and multiple sword and knife wounds. I, I couldn't count them all." It was odd to think that now she knew exactly what a jagged knife could do to flesh, the bloody trail that a sword left behind, the lick of a whip on skin. Before this she had only known how to heal two-legged folk in theory, since most of her practice had been with forest animals. "I'm just glad you're both doing much better."

"Thank you," Fili said after a few quiet moments had passed, "For taking care of my brother and myself." He gave her a small smile. "I doubt we would have survived if it hadn't been for you."

"It was Mim, really," she replied, "I truly am just in training, honest."

Fili leaned back in his chair and looked at her steadily. "But you're the one who found us in the woods and brought us here, right?" He smirked. "I distinctly remember a hobbit and not a human in the woods."

"We do look a tad different, don't we?"

Fili chuckled. "Just a little."

Camy looked down at her feet and wrapped her hands into her dress. "I only did what was right."

"That still deserves a thank you."

"Then you're welcome," she said, glancing up and smiling a little.

Fili smiled back and then spread his hands open on the table. "And I really am sorry about the sword and scaring you like that. I wasn't in my right mind."

"Don't worry!" Camy shook her head. "I might've done the same thing if I'd just been near-killed by goblins and knew how to use a sword." She climbed down from the counter. He didn't need to apologize to her anymore, she really didn't blame him. "As it happens, I've never been in that situation."

He suddenly sat up straighter and looked around. "This place is in the mountains, isn't it?"

"Well, yes, we're in the range, why?"

Fili's eyebrows rose, and he braced his arms as if he was about to get up. "Is my brother in danger?"

Camy waved her hands in the air rapidly. "Oh, no, no, we told him about the gate, he'll be fine!" She walked into the small pantry and started pulling out the sausage links and the fixings for the biscuits. "There aren't any goblins here, I promise."

"A gate?" He didn't sound like he believed her about the gate. She probably wasn't explaining it very well; she had never had to tell anyone about the vale or the gate before. It was sort of difficult to explain such things, now that it came to it. "A gate to what? And why don't they climb over this gate or just take it down? It can't be that formidable."

"Well, they can't because it's a magic gate,"Camy answered, raising her voice so he could hear her clearly from the table. Her fingers darted among the pots and containers of the pantry shelves. "It's the Living Gate. And they can't see it. Well, no one can see it, or, no, wait, they can, but it looks like a rock wall from the outside. And it's the gate to the vale, which is here." Ooo, peppercorn, they'd need that, and where were the chives? Maybe she would make omelets with sausage in them, they couldn't object to that now could they? "This cottage right here is in the vale, which is in the mountains, which have goblins in them, but the vale doesn't have any goblins in it because of the gate." Mmm, she wished there was honey for the biscuits. Oh well. She'd have to convince Mim to let her go visit the bees sooner rather than later. "We do have a donkey though, and lots of plants, and Mim and me." Oh, she hoped that had all made sense! Camy poked her head out of the pantry door to find Fili rubbing his forehead as if he had a headache.

"I don't understand," he said, "How is there a magic gate in the first place?"

"That's not for her to tell," Mim's voice interrupted their conversation. Camy winced a little at Mim's stern tone as she set the breakfast ingredients on the table. The woman moved away from the doorway to her room and came to the table, her eyes on Fili. "And I think you owe us some honest answers before we discuss our home any further."

Camy could see Fili tense, and she wished Mim could be a little nicer. Fili pulled the blue bowl over and set it in front of him. "I can't give you answers if I don't know your questions," he said coolly, "And I do need to know how this place is protected."

"You only need to know that you're safe here as long as you and your brother don't go beyond the gate. Do it, and you can't get back in." Mim reached over and grabbed the flour from the counter. She started pouring it into the bowl as she talked. "As for questions, I need to know why you're traipsing around in the mountains, attracting all manner of foul beasts and getting yourselves hurt and then winding up half dead in my donkey's cart with the girl worrying over you." She set down the flour and looked down at Fili. "And don't say going to visit relatives. That brother of yours isn't half the liar he thinks he is."

Fili's face darkened. "My brother isn't a liar. He was telling the truth."

"But not the whole truth," Mim said. She pulled something from her pocket and set it on the table by Fili's elbow. It was a pair of silver clasps, ones that you put in your hair to hold it back. Camy had a few of them herself, though she only used them when she was working with herbs. These weren't hers though.

"Those are mine and Kili's," Fili growled.

"I know," Mim said. She flipped one of the hair clasps over and tapped her fingertip against a symbol on the clasp. It was a mountain encircled with a crown. "I also know that the line of Durin does not return on the path to the Lonely Mountain to simply visit relatives."


	5. Chapter 5

Camy could feel the tension building between Mim and Fili as the two of them glared at each other, neither speaking. Durin, Durin…she knew that name, but she was having trouble placing it at the moment. There was a plant, she was sure, of that name. Durin's Wealth, a little green sprout with yellow flowers that could be used to ease toothache if you chewed it. But she knew there was another story behind the name of Durin, though it was escaping her at the moment. She moved over to the stove and set the skillet down on top of it. The sound of metal clanging against metal seemed very loud in the charged silence.

Omelets. Omelets would make everything better. She started cracking eggs.

"So what of it?" Fili finally asked Mim, his voice cold, "Why does it matter if we're making for the mountain?"

"It's idiocy, that's why," Mim replied. She moved away from the dwarf and grabbed the bowl that she had just dumped flour into. Some of the white flour fluffed into the air and clouded around their heads. "You must know what bides its time in that damnable mountain, and even if you don't, thanks to youth's ignorance, I'm certain the head of your esteemed household does."

Fili's back was as straight as a mountain pine. "We know the danger—"

"And yet you willingly go to taunt the beast?" Mim shook the bowl of flour at him, adding to the puffy cloud that had just begun to settle. "What're your plans, to nicely ask it to fly off and leave your gold and baubles alone? Bah!"

Camy glanced over at Fili, trying to tell him with her eyes that she was sorry for Mim's attitude. The woman could be somewhat, er, abrasive when she thought you were wrong or doing something moronic. Apparently this whole mountain and dwarf situation was sitting ill with her. Fili's bright blue gaze met hers, and the anger on his face lightened for a moment.

"We aren't going to the mountain without having thought about the consequences. We have a master burglar in our Company," Fili replied, narrowing his eyes as he looked at Mim again, "And Thorin has a solid plan to reclaim our kingdom."

"Of course he does," Mim said sarcastically, "But if the grand plan is to steal away years of dwarvish wealth, he'll need an army of master burglars, not just one." She thunked the bowl of flour down again, and Camy waved away the puff that floated over to her. "All of the well-laid plans in the world are for naught against a dragon."

"A dragon?" Camy asked, lifting her head, her eyes widening. Now she recalled the tale of the line of Durin, and she nearly dropped her skillet in the remembering. As it was, it clattered about on the stove top as she caught at the handle. "Oh! Oh! Erebor!" She gasped and then gaped at the golden-haired dwarf. "You're going to go fight a dragon?! The enormous, fire-breathing, flying, clawed, scaly ferocious kind?"

Fili's eyebrows rose as he turned toward her, a smile slowly catching at the corner of his mouth. "Well, I don't know if I'll be fighting him directly, but yes, that kind of dragon."

Camy could hardly imagine how horrible that would be, to face near-certain death by flame or talon. And he was so very calm about it! "Goodness…"

"You don't know if you'll be fighting—hmph." Mim snorted. "If you're going to be fighting a dragon at all, even indirectly, we might as well not have wasted the time to patch you up. Charbroiled dwarves, indeed…" She glanced over at Camy. "Speaking of burning, watch the stove. Your eggs are getting scorched."

"Fiddlesticks!" Camy moved the skillet off the stove top and frowned down at the curling, browned eggs. "Aw…" Oh well, not the end of the world, she would just have to start over. Throwing open the window over the stove, she flipped the ruined eggs out into the yard where the possums and foxes would enjoy them and then grabbed another pair of eggs. She cracked them in the skillet before glancing over her shoulder to see Mim cross her arms tightly over her chest.

"I suppose you're determined to rejoin Thorin on this fool's errand, aren't you?"

"We are. My uncle knows what he is doing, and I will ask you to show him the respect he deserves, ma'am."

"Ah," Mim said, "So Thorin's not just a cousin..." She sighed. "Dwarves and their blood ties. Then there's no use in trying to talk you out of it."

Fili picked up one of the hair clasps and pulled his hair back, away from his face. "No, not really," he said as he clipped the clasp into his hair. "We'll get back on the road as soon as possible."

Camy looked down at the skillet and tried not to appear too awfully disappointed. It wasn't that she wanted to keep them here as prisoners or anything, definitely not! But…she did sort of want them to stay for a while so she could get to know them better. Having Kili around for the past couple days had been quite fun, even when she was rescuing him from honey pots and acting as a buffer between him and Mim. It was almost like having a friend her own age, or the equivalent there of, and she wondered if maybe they actually could become true friends if they stayed a little longer. He was so very amiable and quite easy to talk to. And she didn't even know Fili at all yet, really, and she wouldn't mind getting acquainted. New people were far more interesting than she had even imagined.

"You won't be leaving before you're fully healed, you stubborn thing," Mim said to Fili, her tone sharp, "You won't make it past the gate, the state you're in, and your thick-headed brother isn't much better off."

Fili stared, and Camy had to bite her lips to keep from smiling as she slipped the finished eggs onto a plate. She had never seen anyone else talk with Mim before, so it was sort of funny to see them react to her cantankerous but kind nature.

"But you were just saying that you wasted time healing us…" Fili said.

Mim brushed some of the flour off her arm. "Well, there's no helping that now, is there? And I don't leave a task half-finished. Bad for business." She moved away from the table, heading in the direction of her workroom. "Ridiculous, foolhardy, obdurate dwarves, hard-headed as the rocks they live under—"

"Thank you, Mim," Fili said, interrupting her grumbling, "I appreciate what you're doing for us, even if you don't believe in our cause."

For a moment, Mim paused at the door, and her expression softened just a little as she turned back toward them. "You're welcome, princeling." She lifted her chin and went into her workroom, her voice drifting back to them before the door shut. "Do _not_ mention it again."

The moment the door settled into place, Camy turned toward Fili and scampered over to the table to stand near him. "You're on a real quest, aren't you? That's terribly exciting, have you ever been on one before? I've only read about them in books and heard the stories, myself."

"Me too," Fili said, looking down at her. The frown lines smoothed out as he gave her a small grin. "This is my first real adventure. It's turned out a little different than expected…" He glanced down at his injured ankle wryly.

"Well, don't you worry about that, you'll be as right as rain soon enough. Then you can go fight your dragon properly."

Fili laughed and leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "I suppose you're right."

Camy smiled and then shook her head as she grabbed the bowl of flour and pulled it closer. "It must be very exciting, being on a quest."

"Some days it is," Fili said, glancing up at the ceiling before looking at her, "other days it's just a lot of walking, and it doesn't seem like we're getting anywhere."

"But you are. Going somewhere I mean." Camy moved to get a few more ingredients for the biscuits. Her eyes slid to the window as she passed it and to the vale beyond, the only place she had ever known. "That must be nice…"

"It is, until it's raining buckets and your wizard tells your there's nothing to be done about it. Or you almost drown in a river. Or you've got a pack of wargs chasing you down, wanting to tear you limb from limb."

Camy whirled around, her eyes wide. "What!"

"I'm telling the truth, honestly! The wargs were right before we reached Rivendell—"

"The Last Homely House! Describe it for me, please, I've only heard tales from Mim."

* * *

While they made breakfast, Camy listened as Fili told the whole tale, from the beginning when his uncle had declared that they were going to reclaim their kingdom up to the point where she had found them in the woods. It was a very riveting story, full of battles and exhilaration and bravery, but Camy kept finding herself intrigued by the burglar, who turned out to be a hobbit like herself. Yet in many ways, it seemed like they were not very similar at all.

Camy cocked her head to the side, smudging flour across her nose and cheek as she tucked some of her curls behind her pointed ear. "Why ever would he would be so adamant about proper table settings for dinner at a campsite?"

Fili rubbed his hands on a cloth and shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I suppose it was just because he was used to doing things a certain way. He gave up on table settings soon enough."

"You'd have to, wouldn't you, if there wasn't an actual table to set?"

"I don't think Mr. Bilbo thinks that way," Fili said, smirking a little, "He's a sort of fussy fellow, very proper, and Kili's always teasing him about it…" He lifted his head as if remembering something and looked at the door, his frown returning. "Kili should be back by now."

"He's probably looking for the best stick he can find for your crutch," Camy said, "I bet he's—"

The door of the tiny home slammed open, banging on the wall with a loud clap. Startled, Camy jumped. Fili was on his feet immediately, bracing himself with one hand on the table as he grabbed a knife left over from preparing breakfast. He lowered the weapon a second later as Kili rushed inside, wearing a triumphant smirk. His good hand was out in front of him and clutched in it was a hunk of honeycomb, dripping sweet sticky drops of honey onto Mim's rug. Unfortunately, that same hand was starting to swell.

"I got your crutch! And I got honey, too, but the bees didn't seem to like me very much."

Fili's face turned an intriguing shade of red. "I couldn't imagine why! Kili, you're a—" Whatever he called his brother and whatever else he said was lost in the dwarven language, a harsh but warm tongue that Camy didn't understand a word of.

While Fili grumbled at his brother, who looked entirely unashamed, Camy darted off to Mim's work room. She slipped inside, not looking at Mim in hopes of getting what she needed without questions. The woman was bent over her work table, cutting lavender with a steady hand. Grabbing fresh basil and parsley, Camy darted back out, feeling Mim's eyes were on her but she avoided looking back at her. Now to go patch up Kili.

* * *

Later that afternoon, on a quilt out on the front lawn, amidst the summer wildflowers and thick patches of mountain moss, Kili and Camy napped, the dark-haired head close to the golden curly one. The two of them had been pointing out clouds to each other, declaring them to be rabbits, swords, flowers and horses, before Kili had nodded off with Camy swiftly following suit. Kili's wrapped up bee stung hand was draped over his eyes while Camy's floppy hat shielded her from the sun.

Fili sat on the nearby front porch steps, whittling away at his new crutch. It was mostly finished, but he was adding runes to the side, ones for swift healing that his mother would have approved. One of his many knives made a good whittling tool. He occasionally glanced over at his brother and the little hobbit lass, a half-smile on his face. For the first time since they had begun this journey, Kili looked completely at rest, that rampant energy of his banked for an afternoon nap. Beside him, Camy had a peaceful look on her face as she slept. Hobbits were a kind, gentle race by nature, it seemed.

By the door, Mim was tilting back and forth in a rickety rocking chair, knitting needles clacking in her hands. Humans, on the other hand, were a mystery to Fili. And he still didn't understand why a hobbit and an old human woman were holed up together in this hidden mountain valley.

"Miss Mim," Fili said, glancing over at her, "Can I ask you a question?"

"You already did," Mim said, not looking up from her knitting, "But go ahead and ask another one. I can tell you'll do it anyways, not sure why you bothered asking for permission."

Such a prickly lady, like one of his mother's pin cushions except all the needles were sticking with the pointy side outward. Fili slid his knife along the side of his crutch, scraping away another layer of wood as he defined a rune. "All right then. Have you always been Camy's guardian?"

Mim's laugh was quick and startling, and it made Fili grip his knife tighter. However, her eyes as she finally looked up at him, were filled with good humor. "Master dwarf, are you asking if I stole my hobbit?"

"It's just a strange situation, a hobbit and a human living together," he said, watching her steadily, "I just—"

"It's not an illegitimate concern," Mim said, waving her hand as she looked back at her knitting, the needles click-clacking, "It is a snatch of an odd tale, but I've always been her guardian, since she was a babe."

"How's that? Are there hobbits about?" Fili asked. He lowered his knife, resting his elbow on his knee. It seemed unlikely seeing how the mountain was overrun with goblins. Unless they had killed Camy's folks…

"No, no hobbits hiding hereabout," Mim said, shaking her head.

Quiet fell on them for a few long minutes while Fili waited for her to tell more of the story. Finally, he had sigh and pick up his whittling again. "You're not going to me, are you?"

"It's not entirely my story to tell," Mim said, "But since you're such a pushy princeling, I guess I'll tell you."

Fili tried not to bristle too much the insult as he turned to her, the crutch resting in his lap. In the chair, Mim kept knitting and rocking, a steady beat to it.

"I've lived in this house for many years," she started, eyes on his knitting, "And I only go into town once a month to deliver herbs and tend to the sick and injured there. About thirty years ago, I was making the trip back from town in the winter months. It was bitter cold, like the wind would whip your nose off if it blew a little harder." She leaned back in her chair, and he saw her gaze dart to the sleeping hobbit girl on the quilt. "I saw her there, by the roadside, all wrapped in a cloak that wasn't warm enough for the time of year."

"It was Camy?"

"Her mother," Mim replied, "A very pregnant young hobbit, not too much older than Camy now. She was from one of the hobbit cans that live down by the Great River… She was very ill and had traveled for from home. I brought her back her, nursed her, tried to heal her but…" Mim shook her head, the knitting needles going still in her lap. "She passed on after Camy was born. Lived long enough to hold the babe and name her then gave her to me for safe keeping." Fili saw her smile as if remembering many years with company of the hobbit lass. "Raised her myself." She suddenly pointed one of the knitting needles at Fili, making him blink. She jabbed it at him. "I know what you're wondering, lad. How'd she turn out like she is living with an old sourpuss like me." Mim laughed and shook her head, the needles beginning to click and clack again, swift and sure. "Not sure. She's just full of light, born that way."

"Kili's like that, sort of," Fili said, nodding, "People like him right when they meet him, like they're drawn to him. He's just got that spark in him."

"Eh, don't compare the imp to my girl," Mim said with a snort, "Camy's sweet and full of goodness. Your brother is a happy-go-lucky fire demon."

And then they were back to glaring at each other.

* * *

The still heaviness of sorrow had not yet lifted from the Company even as they sat in the comfortable warmth of Beorn's cozy home.

"I'll take it to him," Balin said, glancing at the untouched bowl of stew at his elbow, sitting between him and Dwalin. His younger brother lowered his eyes and then tore at the bread in the middle of the table savagely.

"He should come eat on his own, he can't keep acting like this," the tall dwarf snarled, his voice dark. Dwalin was reacting with anger and guilt, as if he could have somehow saved the boys. Balin stood up and squeezed Dwalin's arm as he grabbed the bowl.

"Give him time," Balin said. He patted Bofur's shoulder on the way out to the porch, worried about the normally cheerful toymaker. He had been silent since the caves, his eyes clouded over. The loss of the boys was affecting everyone.

Balin doubted that they would recover any time soon from the events that had spiraled out of control in Goblin Town. They had all signed out for this journey with the knowledge that it was dangerous and death lingered, waiting for any of them at a moment's notice, but no one had suspected that they would lose their youngest members. Fili and Kili had seemed so alive, so invincible in their youth.

It was hard to adjust to the idea that the boys were gone. They had been part of Balin's life since they day Fili was born, laughing, joking, teasing, playing, reading, learning, talking. Kind-hearted, good boys, true and noble with a touch of royalty about them. They had brought joy to his life and to the lives of others, and whenever Balin thought about telling Dis…his heart couldn't take it.

He carried the bowl out to the porch, where Thorin was standing, his back ramrod straight as he stood statue-like by the railing. The leader of their Company was vicious of late, and everyone was avoiding him like you would avoid a rabid wolf. Granted, they had reasons. After they had gotten out of the caves, Thorin had attacked Dwalin for stopping him from going after the boys.

"You should eat," Balin said, his voice low and insistent.

It was a long time before Thorin spoke, and when he did, it was harsh. "Go, Balin. I do not need you watching out for me as if I am a child."

"Apparently, you do." Balin sat the bowl down on the railing and turned to face his old friend and student. He had trained Thorin in everything from war to strategy to diplomacy, which he hadn't taken to as quickly as the first two. He had seen him like this in the past, and it was a foul, dark time that would take patience and understanding to deal with. "You must eat, Thorin."

"I will eat when I take a care too, old one," he growled. "Leave me."

"They wouldn't want—"

"Go!"

Balin sighed and turned, closing his eyes against the pain and hurt in Thorin's voice, almost hidden completely by the rage. They would never fully recover from this. Good boys, too soon gone from this world. They would never know how much they were missed.


	6. Chapter 6

Days passed, and Kili and Fili grew stronger, their wounds healing with the speed that dwarves were renowned for. Mim truly hadn't been teasing when she said they were a hardy folk. Every time Camy changed one of their bandages, she was amazed at how quickly they were recovering from what had seemed like the brink of death.

Although they were of royal blood and whatnot, they didn't laze about the cottage or expect to be waited on hand and foot. They pitched in with the chores without being asked, and eventually, when they were well enough, they asked if they could help get food. Armed with slings and stones, they brought down a few birds one day, and the next day saw the two of them at the stream, makeshift spears in hand.

Camy sat amidst a patch of wildflowers at the edge of the stream. Humming to herself, she worked on mending Fili's shirt, which he had managed to rip the day before. It was cloudy overhead, but stripes of sunlight were breaking through to dance across the water and over the three of them.

Not far from her, Fili was standing ankle deep in the cool water, spear ready to strike, his face determined and patient. Kili, on the other hand, kept jabbing at anything that moved, though luckily his jabs just sent the fish down the stream toward Fili.

Smirking, the older of the brothers plucked another fish from the water with his spear and tossed it onto the bank. "That makes five, Kili."

"You wait," Kili said, frowning, eyes on the water, "I'll catch just one fish that'll be bigger than all of yours combined."

Camy passed her needle through Fili's shirt to tie off the thread. "There aren't any that are bigger than that. We have small fish here, seeing how the stream is a little one."

Fili laughed. "Good luck on besting me, brother."

"If Mim would let us hunt in the forest, I'd shoot us a deer and then you wouldn't be smiling," Kili grumbled.

"Fortunate for me, then, that we're not supposed to leave the valley yet."

"Very."

Camy grinned to herself, enjoying the banter. Before the two of them had come along, she had been alone most of the time with only Bert and some other forest creatures for friends. Mim was a solitary kind of person, and she liked to spend a lot of time with her herbs and tinctures. She knew that Mim loved her and cared about her, but sometimes she just wanted to sit among company and have a good long talk. For the first time, she was able to do just that, and she couldn't have guessed how much she enjoyed it.

It was going to be quite difficult to say goodbye to them when they left.

Lunging forward, Kili tried to stab another fish, but it simply darted away. A moment later, Fili struck and pulled the same fish out of the water.

"You're cheating!"

"How so?" Fili asked, laughing, "Don't be a sore loser, brother."

With a war cry, Kili splashed down the stream and launched himself at Fili, sending both of them into the water. Camy squealed as she was caught by a splash, her skirt getting partially drenched. She started giggling though as the two of them rolled around in the stream trying to dunk each other.

"You're scaring the fish!" declared Fili as he attempted to toss Kili into the water.

"Me? Your face scares them!" Kili twisted around and leapt at Fili, causing him to fall back into the water.

"You're both going to catch a cold," Camy called, but they weren't paying any heed to possible sickness. No, they were much too busy trying to playfully drown each other.

Camy laughed as she got up from beside the stream and made her way back to the cottage to get towels. Mim was standing on the porch when she arrived, a distant, sad look on her face. Gently, Camy placed a hand on her arm. "Mim? What's wrong?"

The human woman looked down at her and shook her head. "Your dwarves seem well."

"I think they're probably about ready to leave on their quest," Camy said with a sigh. She probably needed to start preparing travel packs for them so they could leave fully supplied. "Maybe they'll stay a day or two more."

"You've enjoyed their company," Mim said.

"Yes," Camy said with a bright smile. "They're very funny and friendly."

Mim put a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. "I'm sorry you haven't had many friends. Life is so isolated here…I should have taken you to the village."

"We can go in the spring," Camy said, excited at the prospect. There were a lot of humans in the closest village as well as a few dwarves, and she thought it would be nice to make some new acquaintances there. She doubted that she would be as satisfied with her woodland friends now, though she still loved them very much. It was simply nice to have someone who could actually talk back in the common tongue and make jokes and laugh.

"Maybe so."

"I've got to get towels, they'll be drenched," Camy said. She reached up and patted Mim's arm again before darting inside. She hoped that Mim would think positively about letting her visit the village. She would love to help her as an apprentice in more hands-on settings, where she could get real experience working with people. Maybe she would even meet other hobbits. She had no idea what that would be like, for she had never even seen another hobbit, but she imagined they would be pleasant people, like Mim always said.

Camy darted back outside with towels in hand to find the dwarves flopped on the bank of the stream, both soaking wet and arguing about who had won their little water war. She laughed and dropped the towels over their faces before sitting down in a clover patch behind them.

Fili sat up first, chuckling and rubbing his golden hair with the towel. "Thank you, Camy."

"So who do you think won?" Kili decided, tossing his own towel over his shoulders, "You decide."

"I'd be a terrible judge," Camy said, shaking her head, "I don't know the first thing about skirmishes like that."

"You can say I won then, since I'm your favorite," Kili teased. He wrung out his blue shirt, grinning at her as she smiled.

"I don't have a favorite, but you do seem a tad more wet than Fili. If we're being honest."

"That's right," Fili said, lifting his chin regally, "I won, she's just too nice to say so and destroy all your hopes, little brother."

"It's because my hair's longer," Kili said, rolling his eyes. He reached over and nudged Camy. "I'll teach you to wrestle, Camy, then you can join in."

A burst of laughter escaped her and she covered her mouth. "Oh, no, no…"

"I'm sure you'd be right fierce," Kili said.

"A tiny lioness on the battlefield indeed," Fili joined in, making her blush. She hid her face behind her curls and shook her head.

"And someday pigs will fly and gold will rain from the sky," Camy said.

"That'd be the day," Kili said, "Though I think I'd just prefer the gold. No flying pigs." He smirked wickedly. "That could get messy."

"Kili…"

 


End file.
